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Marriage and civil partnership discrimination
This guide explains marriage and civil partnership as a protected characteristic, the fourth of nine characteristics that are protected from unlawful discrimination under the Equality Act 2010.
The Supreme Court has overturned the Court of Appeal's decision and held that civil partners and same-sex spouses are entitled to pension benefits accrued before the introduction of civil partnerships on 5 December 2005.
We round up three recent European Court of Justice (ECJ) judgments about discrimination. The ECJ has recently considered: temporary incapacity caused by a workplace accident in Barcelona; the recruitment age limit for Basque police officers; and survivors' pensions for same-sex partners in Ireland.
In Hawkins v Atex Group Ltd and others EAT/0302/11, the EAT held that the dismissal of an employee because she was in a close personal relationship with a particular person, which happened to take the form of marriage, did not amount to unlawful marriage discrimination.
In Dunn v Institute of Cemetery and Crematorium Management EAT/0531/10, the EAT held that less favourable treatment accorded to an employee on the ground that she was married to a particular person, rather than because of her marital status per se, amounted to unlawful discrimination on the ground of marriage.
Georgina Kyriacou and David Malamatenios are partners and Sandra Martins, Colin Makin and Krishna Santra are associates at Colman Coyle Solicitors. They round up the latest rulings.
A divorced woman with children cannot complain under the Sex Discrimination Act that she has been discriminated against on grounds of her married status, a Bedford industrial tribunal (Chair: W B Carruthers) has ruled in Myers v (1) Slater and (2) Select Ticketing Systems.
In Jewess v JSB Electrical plc, a Manchester industrial tribunal (Chair: E T Connolly) rules that a woman who was dismissed because her relationship with a former male employee who had left to work for a competitor was still continuing and her employer believed that information about the business would be passed to the competitor was not unlawful discrimination.
HR and legal information and guidance relating to marriage and civil partnership discrimination.